


Dystopian Blue

by euphorbic



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men First Class - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Azazel's Other Mutation, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Infidelity, Implied/Referenced Unwanted Pregnancy, Janos is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, M/M, Relationship Problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 10:09:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9486626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euphorbic/pseuds/euphorbic
Summary: Azazel asks Janos to help him fulfill an important agreement he made with Mystique back when the world was whole. It's the second worst mistake Azazel has ever made.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The majority of this story comes from a dream I had; I just filled in the gaps or adjusted it a little to make more sense. Previous title was 'Azazel's Other Comic Book Mutation'.

_“Do this for me,” Azazel had said, his tail low and still but for the tip which had continuously inscribed a tightly-contained figure eight just above the crumbled asphalt of the old parking lot. “It will be too obvious if I go myself.“_

_Janos had sneered and pulled the beige fabric of his cowl up over his dark hair. “As if it isn’t already, cabrón.”_

_“I rarely ask you favors,” Azazel had said, his brow low over his eyes._

_“And the moment you did,” Janos had replied, “it was the wrong one, but I will go.”_

_And Janos had went._

* * *

The meeting point is far off, beyond the ruins of alien technology, human cities, and deep, steaming vents. It’s all the way to the rocky and blasted region where Janos’ allies or enemies will be able to recognize the path of destruction he leaves behind him. Anyone else, of course, merely sees a powerful dust devil traversing the arid terrain.

Janos enjoys traveling this way, loves the rush of air, being the embodiment of a tornado. He also enjoys the fear he inspires when his enemies see him coming. Less enjoyable is traveling alone in such a wide open space as this desert landscape. This is where bravado comes in. Fortunately he has plenty of that.

Janos alights half a kilometer out amongst the ashy green of sagebrush. He walks the rest of the dusty way to the mine shaft elevator in the midst of the midmorning dust storm of his creation. He walks within, obscured by the aftermath of his travel and wrapped up in his cloak against the pervasive dirt and dust. One of the Underground’s mutants waits at the old mine shaft, her body shrouded in much the same colors as Janos. It’s all gray, beige, and rusty brown for people traveling this way. Janos, of course, throws in taupe because he’s famously vain and because he can.

She doesn’t say anything when he approaches, though her pink and red eyes squint closely from within her own cowl. She wipes her goggles off and steps into the elevator’s rusted and peeling cage. One hand is held free and open, the other she lifts to the box that controls the pulley system that raises and lowers the elevator.

Janos holds his gloved hands out, but then he never bothers to carry weapons; that’s Azazel’s department. Janos is a living, breathing weapon of mass destruction, he doesn’t need things like knives.

The woman nods and Janos steps onto the wooden slats that make up the platform. There’s sand and dirt packed into every crack in the wood and crevice between the slats. Janos hates the Wastelands, but he likes the Underground even less.

She presses the button and the lift lurches to life and begins to make its jerky, screechy descent into darkness. Janos knows that in an enclosed area his power can be even more deadly but as the dark encroaches and soon envelopes him, it doesn’t make him feel better. He hates this place and he detests this thing he’s doing for Azazel.

This will have long term consequences and problems and, truth be told, he doubts their relationship will survive it. However, his feelings for Azazel are such that he’s prepared to take this unwilling chance rather than simply walk away. For Azazel he will _try to_ try.

The lift creaks and groans and shakes in the darkness. Janos brings up a light circular breeze to keep in tune with the size and shape of the blackness. He presses it at the cracks along the four sides of the lift and listens to the soft whistle. The whistle disappears at the same time light breaks in over the boards. Janos pulls the air current in tight to swirl around his body and flutter his traveling clothes. The lift passes a guarded gate and a dim tunnel and continues on. Regular intervals of light and dark, light and shadows pass over Janos and the woman controlling their passage as they pass through different levels.

Janos counts five floors before the woman with the goggles and pink eyes presses her palm over another button and the lift comes to a jerky, swaying stop. As with the other floors, there’s a gate and guards flanking it, behind the guards lights hang down from the ceiling the length of the corridor. Janos waits patiently in the semi dark, his fingers circulating a gentle breeze around each hand.

The guards, mutants like everyone else in the Underground, shove the gates up and motion Janos to pull the wrap from over his nose and mouth. Janos does them one better and uncovers his face and loosens the cowl so his long, dark hair spills forward. They don’t seem impressed, but neither did Azazel and that was a state Janos swiftly unraveled.

He’s allowed forward without accompaniment. Janos has been here before so he needs no instructions. He walks the rough-hewn corridor without guide, a breeze again cycling his hands as his fingers weave it. It’s nervous energy and perhaps needless intimidation; both born of fulfilling a mission he never wanted. Behind him he leaves the corridor’s bare bulbs swing on their cords.

At the end of the corridor is a single metal sliding gate. A collection of mutants of similar garb but disparate body types wait there. Janos stops several meters away and dismisses the whirlwinds from his fingers and down to his feet. A fine layer of dust swirls up and around his ankles and shins.

He flicks the cowl back completely even though his mutation speaks for him more than his famously handsome face. Faces can’t always be trusted, especially in this situation.

The leader of the group uncovers her head and face; it means little. “We all agree that his mutation is best mentored by your associate. Is it agreed?”

Against Janos’ will, yes, but he says nothing, only jerks his chin up in the barest form of agreement.

The leader turns back and guides a small, child-size figure out from behind herself. Bright yellow eyes glow from within its deep hood. Huge eyes at that and a dark, round face. Janos’ jaw sets, but he motions the small mutant forward anyway.

The mutant hesitates and tries to step back, but the woman places her hand on the middle of his back and pushes forward. When he resists, she speaks to him in halting German. Janos understands none of it but for the part where she says ‘Riptide’.

The talk yields the result all but Janos and, perhaps, the small mutant, desire. With another push from the group’s leader, the dark mutant moves forward. His steps are tentative, but Janos has no sympathy and shows him no welcome. The boy steps in front of Janos and looks up despite his forbidding stance.

Janos turns abruptly and heads back the way he came, the swirl of his clothes natural, rather than summoned. If the boy follows, Janos doesn’t care and half hopes he falls behind. But the boy is game, Janos hears him rush to catch up and then he feels a pull on his cloak. Janos tugs the cover back over his nose and the cowl over his head and ignores the hold the boy has on his clothing.

In the elevator Janos comes to a stop in the middle of the wooden planks. The boy follows and when they’re in the darkness between levels, he leans against Janos’ hip. Janos nudges his skinny body away ungently with a knee. There’s no way he can find kindness in his heart, not at this stage.

It’s still morning when they emerge from the Underground but the sun is a muddy haze in the sky. This dust storm is not of Janos’ making, but he’s fond of it all the same. Janos doesn’t walk back to the sage to make his departure this time; there’s no reason when he and his charge are quickly swallowed from view.

Janos halts within the billowing dust and the boy bumps into him. That doesn’t matter, either. This is the part Janos knows he will enjoy the least. This is something he’s never even shared with Azazel. He takes a breath, exhales slowly with his eyes closed and then turns and bends down to pick the boy up.

The boy goes willingly into Janos’ arms and when Janos lifts him up the boy reaches around Janos’ neck and presses his face to Janos’ chest. In that moment Janos loathes him more than ever. He’s not convinced Azazel will ever be able to make this up to him.

“My name is Kurt,” the boy says in thickly accented English, to Janos’ relief he doesn’t feel the child’s breath through his cloak or the clothes beneath. “And my mutant name is Nightcrawler.”

Janos promptly presses the blue face into his chest firmly enough to make speech difficult and exhales a short but emphatic, “ _Shhh_.”

The child shrinks into Janos’ chest. His fear isn't satisfying; Janos knows he's in the wrong to treat the boy harshly. The mistakes made are not the child's.

Janos checks the thin legs are indeed snug around his waist, holds tight with his left arm, and supports the child’s weight with his right. Again, he whispers, “Shhh.”

Carrying a living creature has never turned out well when Janos travels in his preferred mode. Janos normally spins his whole body at reality-defying speeds when he moves tornado-like across long distances. While the spin doesn’t affect him the wind does often rip at his clothing and the spin has resulted in more than one animal’s death. It’s not as easy to bring the traveling winds up without spinning rapidly, but he’s done it before with concentration.

Janos takes a steadying breath through his face-covering’s fabric. He strengthens his grip and he turns in place to kickstart the initial winds. The winds come, as they always do, and he keeps his body's spin slow but raises the wind to a tight, circular gale. The boy holds tighter and then, a familiar feeling: Janos feels a tail wrap around his ribs.

Janos’ eyes widen in surprise and then narrow in irritation. He nearly allows his concentration and the wind to fail, but in his spin Janos realizes Azazel isn’t there at all. The tail is much too short, thin, weak. Janos can’t see it but he assumes it’s blue.

* * *

The amount of concentration it takes Janos to traverse the great distance to the meeting point without killing the boy is far more draining than he remembers. This is why he rarely performs this style of travel. Remaining mostly stationary requires more force, more destruction; the trail he leaves will be unmistakable. Janos curses Azazel for a fool and makes a detour through the prairie that will take longer but leave less of a trace.

He takes the last kilometer on foot, a comatose mutant child in his arms. The boy only gets heavier as they go. By the time Janos arrives at the meeting point he’s tired, hungry and his head aches. Anger sustains him. He walks across the overgrown parking lot and sets his charge down on the warm, sun bleached bonnet of one of the many derelict cars. In the distance the sun is beginning to descend into the mist that surrounds the distant hills. Clouds formed from the vents rent in the earth continually fill the valley; the tops on the hills and the alien constructions breach the cloud banks. It will never not look bizarre and otherworldly to Janos.

A ripple in the air, a familiar popping of air displacement, and a pair of red arms around Janos’ waist and a warm chest at his back announce Azazel. Azazel uses his tail to tug the cowl back and to pull the covering from Janos’ face. He presses his face into the back of Janos’ neck and inhales deeply.

Janos stomps on his foot and elbows him hard in the ribs.

Azazel only grunts lightly at the attack, but reluctantly lets go.

Janos takes a step away before he turns to face Azazel. He points at the sleeping boy sprawled on the car’s sun-warmed metal. “There he is. It is for you to decide if this was worth it.”

A long, slow breath hisses quietly between Azazel’s teeth. “This is not ideal, but Mystique is gone and we had this agreement.”

Janos jerks his chin up in blatant challenge. “And you have this agreement with every woman you fuck? We might as well start a home for all your little bastard children.”

“No,” Azazel says calmly, rationally, “he is only one. You know he is only one that could have survived.”

Unfortunately, Janos is past the point of reasoning. The anger, the weariness, the disappearing appetite, and above all, the consuming jealousy, are all he feels.

“You put your agreement with her before me!” And though he does not raise his voice to say it, it sounds just as ugly as Janos knows he is beautiful.

Azazel’s heavy brow lowers in anger, his tail slashes the air behind him. “She is gone, Janos.”

Janos gestures again to the little blue boy, all wrapped up in wind-tattered traveling clothes. “I am no babysitter.”

“He is not so little child,” Azazel replies, his lip beginning to curl with his frustration. He reaches out for a handful of Janos’ cloak but Janos slaps his hand away. “He will grow in a short time.”

“He is hers,” Janos says, “and this will not work. I have given you ten years and all she gave you was one night! Where are your promises to me?”

And though he is tired, the fury sustains him. He spins on the ball of his foot to go and doesn’t stop. His fury transports him and he begins to pick up speed, but suddenly Azazel is on him in a puff of black vapor. And then they’re gone, but then they’re back a few meters away, and then they’re gone, only to return another few meters away. It’s disorienting when Janos is trying to spin, to summon his winds, and it quickly becomes too much. Eight jumps in, Janos slumps weakly in Azazel’s arms, his headache reaching toward sickening heights and his emotional and physical exhaustion putting an end to his mutation’s strength or effectiveness.

Another jump and Azazel sets him down on a folded blanket in a warm, dusty room. The hardness of the floor on Janos’ shoulder blades and hips tells him it’s hardwood flooring, the peeling wall paper speaks of age. But the sun through the unbroken windows does Janos’ head in; he lifts his hands to ward it away.

Azazel places his hand between the sunlight and Janos’ eyes. “You want promises? I promise I believed I was furthering mutant supremacy by fucking all those women for Shaw and then for Lehnsherr. I promise I regret agreeing to seduce Mystique; I allowed her to believe we were kindred spirits. I feel regret for very few things; Mystique is one. That is why I promised to help.”

Janos drops his arm over his face. “You have said this all before. I can’t change how I feel about it.”

“See how you feel in few months,” Azazel replies. “Try.”

Janos shakes his head despite the pain and the arm over his face.

A rough-skinned hand gently pulls the arm away and then Azazel leans down to block the sun with his body. He places both hands on the sides of Janos’ face and leans down to gently touch his nose to Janos’. “Try for me and I will make it up to you. I cannot lose you, Yanochka.”

Janos already feels as if Azazel has, but the truth is, Janos doesn’t know where he could go if he did leave. So he turns his face away and ducks his head in a nod. “Give me time and ask me no more favors.”

Azazel presses his lips to Janos' temple and then the peak of his cheek bone. “It will be as you ask.”

It isn’t lost on Janos that it already isn’t, especially when the old drapes are drawn and Janos sees the stuffed blue Moomin horse in one corner, on top of their supplies and equipment.

 


End file.
